Prompt #3: What are your thoughts on love?
Ha! A most superfluous question, for as my good friend Watson has stated, I do not speak often of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. Romance is the folly of other men, the source of many a woman's grief, and the motivation for those less scrupulous who prey on the innocent.
Rumour has reached my ears that many a reader has erroneously fallen into the belief that somehow the late Irene Adler, the renowned contralto who had nearly compromised the King of Bohemia, had captured my heart. I have even heard that Mrs. Norton (as she was later known) and I had clandestinely married during my "missing" years after my supposed death at Reichenbach Falls. Ho! What a hearty laugh that one was!
Perhaps those good readers misinterpreted my request for her photograph as my payment for services rendered. I keep reminders all around me in regards to the deviant and criminal mind. As many of Watson's writings have alluded, I am not infallible. The "Scandal in Bohemia" case taught me never to take anything or anyone for granted—especially a woman.
Thus you can see why the emotion of love would indeed be a dangerous one for me. I cannot endanger myself with such peril whilst I am on a case. How easily could my position be inverted from pursuer into pursued were I to have some chink in my armour so easily exposed.
No, when it comes to love, it is best not to be thought of at all.